The Last War of the 501st
by Ingram
Summary: Shortly after the battle of Ithor, a new rpublic officer finds himself assigned as a liason officer to the most feared Imperial Legion in the Galaxy


_It is well war is so terrible, or we should grow to fond of it-_Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia

The New Republic shuttle craft let out a soft whine as it came into rest on the

cracked and pitted permacrete landing pad,. Letting out a slight hiss of escaping pressure, the shuttle's loading bay door slid open and its single passenger hopped out, his kit bag slung over his shoulder. The first thing he noticed was the hellish heat and humidity that promptly swarmed over him. The second was the single storm trooper leaning against one of the light poles that stretched between the landing pad and what appeared to be a temporary Imperial base. The storm trooper sauntered over to the passenger.

"First Lieutenant Sagela?" the trooper asked.

"Yes, I've been sent…." Sagela was abruptly cut off when the trooper radioed into his headquarters.

"Sir the rebel's here…yes sir, immediately." The storm trooper shifted his black eyed gaze back to Sagela "Follow me…sir." the trooper turned the title into more of a taunt than an honorific.

_Arrogant Imperial prick_ Sagela thought, but nonetheless he began to follow the trooper up the road to the base. When the shuttle took off, Sagela turned to watch it leave, staring longingly as his last escape back to the Republic was cut off. Turning back towards the path, he found that the storm trooper had disappeared!

"Hey! What the…"

"Down here sir." the troopers voice drifted up from a slit trench that ran parallel to the main road.

"What are you doing down there?", Sagela got too _down_ before a Razor bug flew past his head, after which he promptly threw himself flat and rolled into the trench. Drawing his blaster Sagela began to line up the bug in his sights when a high powered energy bolt tore though it.

"778 I've got him! Tree line to the left of the Landing pad!" shouted the trooper.

Another energy bolt flew into the fetid jungle that surrounded the area.

Two seconds later a Yuuzhan Vong corpse slid from a three top and landed with a wet thud as it hit the soggy ground.

"Nice shooting 778." the trooper turned to Sagela, "If we could just continue sir."

Without waiting for a reply, the trooper began to walk along the trench.

"By the way sir, we've booby trapped this trench, so watch yourself." As they advanced along the trench, dodging the occasional fiendish trap or blindly tossed razor bug, Sagela noticed that the trooper had scrawled bits of graffiti on his armor, and that the armor itself had been painted a camouflage pattern, although it had worn off in many places.

Dodging a thud bug, Sagela got a good look at a particularly grim epitaph on the troopers back armor; "Born to Die" had been neatly written over a drawing of a human skull.

Sagela let out a slight shiver.

Five minutes later they finally crawled out of the trench a few meters short of the Imperial base. His escort stood up and stretched his arms before walking towards the gate.

"Trooper!" Sagela shouted, convinced that his fatalistic comrade was attempting suicide.

The trooper let out a slight laugh "We're out of range sir." he explained, as if speaking to a none too bright child.

"Oh…right."

Turning to hide his embarrassment, Sagela's eyes went wide.

A heavy earth moving machine was pushing a stack of Yuuzhan Vong and Reptoid corpses into a huge pit dug between the tree line and the bases perimeter.

"Sorry about the mess sir. The scar faces hit us pretty hard last night." the trooper said before waving Sagela on. Walking in through the heavily fortified gate, Sagela saw what the trooper meant. A few of the plastisteel buildings were in ruins, a smashed AT-ST was splayed across the road not far from the corpse of a Yuuzhan Vong war beast, and the ground was littered with Vong corpses. Imperial troopers were picking through these, tossing Reptoid corpses in one pile while laying out the Yuuzhan Vong warriors in a row.

"We'll keep those in here." the trooper explained, pointing to the row of bodies, "It drives the Vong out of there heads if we don't let 'em collect their dead. They'll hit us again to get them back…and then we'll add more to the pile."

"That's a little…"

"It's easier than hunting them." the trooper said before continuing on down the dirt road.

"Up ahead is the headquarters bunker," the trooper pointed to a permacrete bunker in front of them, "Over there's the med center, there's the barracks buildings, and over there's the vehicle pool." the trooper stopped in front of the main bunker, "This is as far as I go sir, I've got a Sabacc game too get back to." The trooper turned and walked away.

Another storm trooper, whose armor sported an outlandish mottled camouflage pattern of green, brown, and black, stuck his head out from the heavy steel door to the bunker.

"Follow me sir." When he walked thorugh the heavy door and pushed back the blackout curtain that was hanging over the entrance, Sagela found himself staring down the barrel of a heavy tripod mounted repeating blaster.

"Don't mind that sir…its just there in case the Vong break into HQ again." his new escort pointed down a long hallway to a heavy steel door, "Command room's through that door sir."

Sagela nodded and walked down the corridor, he passed a few imperial officers, each one sent him the same cold, measuring stare. It was pointedly obvious that the Imperials were less than pleased with the presence of a New Republic officer in their midst.

Standing to full military attention, Sagela knocked on the door to the office of the commander of the 501st legion.

When the door swung open Sagela had every preconceived notion he had about Imperial officers shattered. Instead of proper aristocrat, the giant who answered the door was manifestly a soldier; he wore his uniform tunic tucked into a pair of camouflage fatigue pants of new republic design, carried a heavy blaster pistol in across draw holster, and instead of an officers peaked cap he wore a black bandanna over his head.

"You must be the reb…I mean republic officer. Have a seat." the commander waved too an empty folding chair opposite his desk. Sagela set down, the uncomfortable metal chair doing nothing to help a general mood of unease that was taking over him.

Sagela looked at the standard that flanked the commander's desk-a regular imperial flag with a black fist clenched over the crest, with '501' in block letters underneath. A rainbow of battle ribbons dangled from the top of the flag pole, standards that dated back to the first battle of the clone war sand went to the present. Near the bottom was a particularly gaudy streamer Sagela had never seen before.

"Sir may I ask what engagement the black and red one is for?"

The hulking Imperial turned and pointed to the mystery ribbon,

"This one here?" he asked, when Sagela nodded, the commander took it off the flag and handed it to Sagela, "That's for the attack on the Jedi Temple at the end of the clone wars." Sagela nearly dropped the ribbon,

"I-I've never seen one like it before…" Sagela stammered as he handed the award back.

"Nor will you. Unless of course, the Jedi gives us a reason to wipe their new academy on Yavin."

"Well I'm sure they won't…"  
The Imperial officer shrugged, as if it really didn't matter to him one way or another.

"Anyway lieutenant, you have been sent here as a liaison officer for the New Republic, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Well officers quarters are back down the hall and too the left. There should be a few empty bunks down there."

Sagela stood and was almost to the door when the Imperial officer called after him,

"Yes sir?"

"Lieutenant, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like you too accompany one of my ambush patrols tonight; you know just to familiarize yourself with how we do things out here."

"Uhmm…okay. I mean yes sir!"  
"Good. Be ready by 17:45 hours."


End file.
